Merchant in Fraud Inquiry

National chain Jewson which has over 500 branches across the UK, supplying building products to the trade and general public, has dismissed sales director Tony Newman, together with another (as yet un-named) member of staff, following allegations of financial fraud to the tune of approximately £1 million.

The company has dismissed the two employees after it found some irregularities during an internal audit. Full details have been passed to the police.

Saint Gobain, the French owner of Jewson has announced that none of its customers were involved in the investigations. The company said: “Following an investigation by our internal audit department, Tony Newman was dismissed from his role as sales director with immediate effect.

“In addition, one other person, who had been employed by Jewson for less than two weeks, has been dismissed as a result of our internal investigation.

“This matter, which relates to the fraudulent supply and procurement of marketing services, has now been passed to the police who are conducting a detailed investigation with our full co-operation and support.

“We can category state that no customers are, or have been in any way, involved with this matter.

“Jewson is an organisation that is governed by strong principles of conduct. This incident is seen as an opportunity to reaffirm these across the organisation and with our external relations.

Jewson has over 500 branches across the UK, making it one of UK’s leading supplier of timber, plumbing and building products to plumbers the trade in general. The company has opened its first branch in Cambridgeshire in 1836 and we have now been in the business for over 170 years.

Jewson is part of the Saint-Gobain Building Distribution Group, Europe’s largest building materials distributor, having been acquired by Saint-Gobain in April 2000. Saint Gobain has a network of over 3,700 sites and an annual turnover of €17.5 million.

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This page has been written with contributions from experienced plumbers from Oxfordshire and qualified plumbers from Dartford. Several of the company's experienced heating engineers from Hertfordshire have worked on similar issues as well as some of our Gas Safe engineers from Milton Keynes and our Tonbridge plumbers.

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